Thursday, November 13, 2008

How is this possible? I just did a post about Florida and the inhabitants thereof. And where do you think that the next wacky thing I read about was? You got it. Florida! Where everything is possible! Including the impossible!

According to the folks over at First Coast News (It's not news! It's Florida!) "A south Florida man believes he's found Jesus at the breakfast table." Yeah, yeah, and I found Satan in my hammock, what else is new?

It would seem that a one Troy Eckonen was enjoying some French toast at Mack's Cafe in Pompano Beach (the most likely place for Jesus to return to, of course) and on the last piece of French toast, there it was! Troy saw the face of Jesus on his French toast. (Never mind that Jesus wasn't French. He saw it!) Behold! French toast-y Jesus!

We learn that "After studying the toast Eckonen says he and friends also see Christ's left arm raised and holding a cross, as well as two birds over the left shoulder." Right You've got Jesus, Jesus' arm, a cross and a couple of birds on your French toast. How big was this piece of toast anyway? I'm surprised he didn't also see the Last Supper on there as well. What are you doing looking for the Son of God on your toast anyway? It's not like it's a Where's Waldo platter, is it? Find Jesus and get 50% off?They felt the need to tell us that Troy is "a bodybuilder and owner of Pompano Beach's Tropical Gym". (OK, I get it. It's not get 50% off. It's "Find Jesus and get free advertising." Sure, that makes sense.) Then we learn that Troy "says he isn't planning on selling the toast, and hopes that the image will help "renew the hope and faith" of those who see it." Was he planning on eating the toast? Because there are children around the world who are starving to death, you know. They would love to have your Jesus-y toast there, Troy!

I had difficulty finding pictures of Troy looking like a normal human being. You know, the kind that would be out eating French toast in public. I wasn't very successful, as all I seemed to come up with were body building pictures of him and I don't know how recent they are. There is a recent picture of the French toast on his gym's website. The caption reads "Out of 140 asked, 139 saw Jesus. What do you think? See more pictures and add your comments!" Fortunately, only 17 of those 140 have left comments so far.

Wait. He hopes that hope and faith will be renewed of "those who see it"? How are they going to see it? Is the toast planning a world tour? Is the toast booked on Oprah? Does the Pope know about the toast? (I don't know if you have to tell the Pope when you find Jesus in your French toast, but I'd guess he'd probably like to know. And he is the Pope, don't want to keep him waiting. Call him after you're done with Oprah and fill him in.)

Of course this reminded me of another Florida resident (shocking, I know!), a one Diana Duyser who put a grilled cheese sandwich with the image of the Virgin Mary on it up for sale on eBay in 2006. The highest bidder and lucky winner of the sandwich (which was 10 years old and preserved in a plastic box atop cotton balls for some reason. She didn't have a Ziploc? What's up with that?) was the Golden Palace Casino. They felt the need to encourage this sort of religious-figure-in-my-food-sighting phenomenon that rears it's head in Florida a couple of times a year, by paying $28,000 for the damn sandwich and another $6,000 for the pan in which the image of the Mother of Christ was grilled to a toasty brown goodness. These pics should tell you more than enough about decade-old sandwich vendor and Florida resident (just in case you forgot which hellhole of the nation we were visiting today) Diana Duyser.

Oh, but it gets a little bit better! It wouldn't be Florida without a tattoo, now would it?! That's right. After pocketing her $32,000 (suckers!) she felt the need to have a full size tattoo of the sandwich tattooed on her breast at Miami Ink. That woman had $32,000 (likely the most money she has ever had at one time in her entire life. It was like the dairy product lottery for her I'm sure.) and she decides to use it to get a tattoo of a sandwich on her breast? Why a tattoo? Why not teeth? Maybe a new Rascal scooter? Why the tattoo?